Our Grade 5 Monster Project

This year Mrs Beagley's class is involved in a global literacy and technology project called 'The Monster Project' (with Mrs Beal in the computer handling the computer technology side). Are you wondering what the 'Monster Project' is all about? Well, 38 classes from around the world are collaborating in building monsters, reading and writing monster stories, telling monster jokes and more. Each class had to write in with a photo and a brief description about themselves. This is what we wrote about Grade 5B



This Monster Project is the brainchild of Mr Smith in the USA. Mr Smith sent all the participants the link to a talk by Dr Sruart Brown, a researcher on the importance of play and fun in childhood.
http://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html

This is how the project works. A monster is divided up into 38 parts and all the participating classes take one part. We have the earings! Each class comes up with 8 - 12 adjectives of how their adopted part should look. This is how Grade 5B described the earings.



Then the children in the class design a monster according to the specifications of all the other classes! In November all 38 classes around the world will vote on who has kept the closest to the descriptions in all the parts.

Here you can see the beginning of the project where everybody in Grade 5B is thinking!



They start to design a monster according to the descriptions given. Mrs Beagley will select one of these designs.




The monster is coming on! Eyeballs, tails and ears!






On Tuesday 40 teachers who are country winners in the Innovative Teacher Competition (finals are being held in Cape Town) are visiting our school for two hours. We will show them the monster and tell them about the project!To find out more about this project visit the Monster project website.
http://www.smithclass.org/proj/Monsters/index.htm

Latest picture of the monster.